Matt Damon Still a Save Our Schools Superstar

This week Jeb Bush, a shameless supporter of these destructive corporate reform policies, had the audacity to criticize Matt Damon for choosing not to subject his children to the test-driven, standardized public education Bush has helped create.

Jeb Bush and ed deformers are afraid of Matt Damon. Following up on NYC Educator's great post on Matt Damon (Who's Afraid of Matt Damon?) the other day, this from SOS:

     

 

        To most Americans, Matt Damon is a Hollywood celebrity and superstar. But to Save Our Schools supporters Matt Damon is a very different kind of hero. In the summer of 2011, he put the filming of his new movie, "Elysium" on hold and flew overnight to Washington, DC to address the thousands of teachers, students, and families assembled in the sweltering heat for the Save Our Schools rally. In his Speech he told the crowd of the many contributions that his own well-rounded, enriching, public school education made to his future personal and professional success. He decried the damage being done to public schools by the corporate based reforms of high stakes testing and standardization and promised to "have our backs" in the fight ahead. His words energized and inspired the crowd and gave us hope that our plight to save public education would not go unnoticed.

Since 2011, the damage of corporate driven reform policies has been further compounded by the widespread closing of neighborhood public schools in many cities, rampant privatization of public education by for-profit charter operators, and the Race-to-the-Top mandates that tie teacher evaluation to high stakes tests. Common Core Standards are ushering in a standardized national curriculum that is impervious to the individual needs of children, the wishes of families, and the professional judgment of teachers. A "new generation" of national assessments has been initiated and funded by corporate giants, and threatens to suck the remaining sparks of creativity and imagination out of our nation's classrooms despite the valiant efforts of teachers.

This week Jeb Bush, a shameless supporter of these destructive corporate reform policies, had the audacity to criticize Matt Damon for choosing not to subject his children to the test-driven, standardized public education Bush has helped create. In a cynical twist of reality, Bush accused Damon of supporting "choice" for his family but not for the rest of the country. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The kind of "school-choice" touted by Bush (and his many bi-partisan allies) offers nothing but a phony solution for parents whose neighborhood schools have been financially decimated or closed and whose kids are forced to travel across cities (and gang lines) to attend school. "School-choice" reformers know that school vouchers don't come close to buying a ticket into the kind of private schools their own kids attend. They also know that privately-managed charter schools (not parents) have all the "choice" when it comes to providing an education to children who are low-performing, those who have special needs, or those who are learning English as a second language. Reformers know that parents aren't the ones choosing to hire non-unionized, underprepared "instant" teachers, and they're certainly not choosing to warehouse our poorest children in scandalously overcrowded classrooms.

The kind of "choice" Matt Damon and his mother, Early Childhood Educator Nancy Carlsson-Paige support is entirely different from the type advocated by corporate funded politicians like Jeb Bush. It is the choice we must make as a nation to provide all our children with great public schools right in their own neighborhoods. It is the choice to ensure that public schools have small class sizes, enriching individualized and age-appropriate curriculum, professional career educators in every classroom, authentic and meaningful on-going assessment, and a wide range of community support services to offset the effects of poverty afflicting an astounding 20% of our nation's children. It is the choice to furnish schools with fully stocked libraries that spark the love of reading, to offer meaningful professional development options for teachers, and to build partnerships between schools and families to ensure that we serve the needs of all our children, not just the privileged and more able. Once we succeed in making these choices, the dilemma that Damon and so many parents face will dissolve.

So, is Matt Damon still a Save Our Schools superstar? You bet! And so are the growing numbers of parents "opting out" of high stakes tests, teachers who are boycotting tests and resisting one-size-fits-all national standards, and students who are beginning to make their opposition heard. 

Save Our Schools invites all supporters of public education to join us on August 24^th as we participate in the 50th Anniversary March on Washington. Our banner will remind the nation that "Public Education is a Civil Right." We know that Matt Damon agrees.

Randi Still Wants That Stool at the Table

Randi Weingarten...wants her 1.5 million members to be open to changes that might improve public schools.

Debby Pope, who works in the CTU's grievance unit, said the message from Chicago was simple: old-fashioned hardball, combined with outreach to parents and communities likely to be hurt by public school closings, works better than compromise. "We will not be heard at the table unless we are out there in the streets seen and heard fighting," she said. 

----Reuters

Time out from @SOS reports though lots of discussions have been going on pertinent to this -- and I will try to get those videos up ASAP -- see especially the union session from this morning where Leo said some interesting things -- even more interesting that there were some UFT chapter leaders in the room. @SOS - Teachers' Unions, Teachers' Rights, Teachers' Voice.  I have lots of tape of CTU/CORE member Xian Barrett who explains so much that will illuminate why the UFT/AFT is one thing and the CTU is something else.

In this article Randi is at it again and this article delineates the fault line between AFT/UFT position and that coming out of Chicago. Sure I would like a real seat at the table and yes I would lobby politicians but it is not about Randi having that seat -- though what she gets is a stool. We don't do an ask or lobby until we have a massive force behind us. And that force has to be built first which the UFT and AFT are not doing. You know why? You can't build such a force in a fundamentally undemocratic union.

U.S. teacher union boss bends to school reform winds

By James B. Kelleher

DETROIT, July 31 | Tue Jul 31, 2012 7:36pm EDT
 

(Reuters) - In the maelstrom of criticism surrounding America's unionized public teachers, the woman running the second-largest educator union says time has come to collaborate on public school reform rather than resist.

Randi Weingarten, re-elected this week for a third term as president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) with 98 percent of the vote, wants her 1.5 million members to be open to changes that might improve public schools.

That willingness to engage, she says, could win over parents, taxpayers, voters, well-funded pressure groups and cash-strapped cities that have blamed unionized teachers for high costs and poor performing schools.

"We have to unite those we serve and those we represent," Weingarten said in an interview with Reuters at the AFT convention in Detroit. "And we have to think ... what's good for kids and what's fair for teachers?"

Weingarten rebuffed her critics in the union for mistaking collaboration with surrender and said her overwhelming victory in the election showed rank-and-file members supported the move.

"There are a lot of people who are very angry for legitimate reasons and want to hear simply the 'fight back'," Weingarten said. "But this is about fighting for things as well as fighting against things."

Across the United States, public education -- and the often unionized teachers and support staff employed in the sector -- are under attack from reformers who argue the country's schools need to be reformed and partially privatized in order to improve student performance.

Weingarten was attacked by critics for a willingness to throw her support behind deals in places like Philadelphia and Cleveland, where AFT locals bargained away tenure protections, or New Haven, Connecticut, where the union accepted a teacher evaluation system that removes teachers whose students don't perform well on standardized tests. 

"Some people would argue what happened in New Haven is not solutions-driven unionism," Weingarten told Reuters. "Do I embrace every single aspect of that agreement? Is everything single aspect of that agreement part of my particular belief system about how education should run? Of course not."

Weingarten's call for greater community outreach strikes many observers as a realistic strategy for building support for public education, long attacked for high costs and poor results.

"She has said she's open to any reform, under certain conditions, except private school vouchers. She's drawn the line there," said Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at a liberal-leaning think tank, The Century Foundation, and author of "Tough Liberal" a biography of former AFT President Albert Shanker.

"But on every other issue - charter schools, merit pay for teachers - she has said that the AFT is willing to talk. And I think that's the right tack to take."

SUMMER OF DISCONTENTS
But activists in the union, hardened by the layoffs, furloughs, pay freezes and benefit cuts that states and municipalities have forced on teachers nationwide in a weak economy, remain vocal and leery of Weingarten's blueprint for the future.

"We have to ask ourselves what are the solutions that are driving the particular model that Weingarten is talking about," said Jeff Bale, a professor at Michigan State University who spoke at a panel discussion hosted by AFT dissidents from Chicago and Detroit.

"Concessions don't lead to more prestige with the public. Concessions don't win more credibility at the bargaining table. They lead to more concessions."

Critics say Weingarten's willingness to see traditional job protections like tenure disappear and to accept charter schools, merit pay and other changes is a retreat from core principles and plays into the hands of those who want to eliminate public education, privatize government services and curb the ability of workers to unionize.

What the new approach will mean for AFT's membership remains to be seen. Like its bigger counterpart, the 3.2 million-member National Education Association, AFT has seen its full dues paying membership decline in recent years, according to its official filings with the United States Department of Labor.

AFT spokeswoman Carolyn Fiddler says total AFT membership -- which includes retirees and members paying partial dues -- is actually up from "1.5 million and change" in 2010 to "1.5 million and some more change" in 2012, a claim repeated in the state of the union report issued at the Detroit convention.

At the event, officials said AFT, which represents teachers and other school staff as well as healthcare workers, had signed up 79 new bargaining units in 18 states in the past year.
REAL FIGHT LEFT?

Weingarten told Reuters that there was "real fight left" in the AFT. But the question is how widespread and deep it is.

One convention highlight came when the 3,000 delegates, [actual number of delegates reported at start of convention was 2300] in a spirited floor vote, unanimously backed a "special order of business" promising the union's full support for "AFT educators in hostile bargaining environment who are fighting to defend fair contracts and the right to bargain collectively."

That describes just about every AFT local in the country.

But the resolution specifically cited five cities, including Chicago, the nation's third-largest public school system, where teachers represented by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) have been involved in bitter contract talks with Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a Democrat, and could walk out beginning on August 18.

At a weekend caucus on the sidelines of the convention, delegates from Chicago and Detroit, where an emergency manager has imposed a 10 percent pay cut on teachers, were skeptical the national union has the appetite for strikes or walkouts.

But they agreed, as William Weir, a Detroit public school teacher put it, that "it's time to do things differently."

Activists seemed especially excited by CTU, which resisted an effort by Emanuel to unilaterally impose a longer school day and won -- a rare victory these days for a teachers union.

Debby Pope, who works in the CTU's grievance unit, said the message from Chicago was simple: old-fashioned hardball, combined with outreach to parents and communities likely to be hurt by public school closings, works better than compromise.

"We will not be heard at the table unless we are out there in the streets seen and heard fighting," she said.

(Edited by Peter Bohan and Mary Milliken)

===========
The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

@SOS Karran Harper Royal: How [Some] African Americans and Civil Rights Leaders Got on the Wrong Side of the Ed Reform Movement

Karran is the best there is at exposing the ed deform New Orleans "miracle." And a founder with Leonie Haimson and others of Parents Across America.

She opposed the status quo back in the 90's so she can't be accused of defending the SQ.
She could have been on the ed deform side given her history of activism but saw through it. She knew Howard Fuller and was sympathetic at times. Thus she can understand why some African-Americans line up there.
One of major Afr-Am who line up on wrong side of ed reform is Pres. Obama.
Waivers for NCLB worse than the original NCLB. Can keep child in failing school forever thru turnaround.
New Orleans choice is often NO  choice. She can't out her son in the charter school 2 blocks from her house because of "choice."
Her son goes to a charter miles away -- if her son gpa drops below 2.0 in 11th grade he will be kicked out.
Language of corp reform -- data walls.
Neediest children get unqualified teachers thru TFA -- make out like bandit -- almost a million $ to TFA for bringing in only 250 teachers.
We're being forced into school choice which depends on segregating children -- ability and socio-economic means by not providing transportation. Her son's school -- principal gets $5000 a yr car allowance while kids denied trans expenses. Before Katrina - 55% Af-Amer to 33% post Katrina - counseled out. And all sorts of fees ---school is 2nd highest performer in NO.
Language of some of the initiatives -- eg. highly effective teachers = rated by test scores.
Partnerships -- someone will be making money.
Al Sharpton got on the wrong side of ed reform.
We need our civil rts ldrs to be on right side.
Lists Afr-Amer on wrong side: Mayor Cory Booker, Kira Orange Jones TFA Ex Dir), Jonah Edelman.
Scared of Cory Booker.
SEIU - supported Kira Jones -- mentions Dana Peterson SEIU organizer -- saw SEIU organizers.

Teachers who say cannot say they don't like to be political -- MUST.
[Depends on how you view "political" - Karran says run for office and lobby -- I tend more toward only doing that after you build a massive support org. Become organizers first. Not sure we disagree on anything. Maybe nuanced.]
Q from teacher trainer -- dangers of resistance.
Karran - we all have to work but we also have to have principles. In NO - New Teacher Roundtable -- with former TFA people doing outreach to TFA teachers. They have no support net -- gotta reach out to them. Use work to hide realities.
http://newteachersnola.posterous.com

Karran going to New Zealand where they want to use earthquake in Christ Church to charterize all schools.

Check out James Boutin SOS Posts:

SOS Conference 2012, Day One

SOS Conference 2012, Day Two Morning

 

@SOS - Teachers' Unions, Teachers' Rights, Teachers' Voice

 Panelists: Mike, Fred Klonsky (Frmr Park Ridge Ed Assoc Pres), Sian Barrett (Chicago TU), Michael Walker Jones (Exec Dir of Louisiana Assoc of Ed).

Room is filled with many union activists -- a bunch from NYC. CLs Arthur Goldstein and John Elfrank-Dana plus Leo Casey.

Interesting there are people from groups similar to MORE from Providence and Newark and some other areas of Jersey. A principal from NYC just said (proudly) that her new chapter leader ran on a MORE platform. (I'm glad Leo wasn't eating anything he could choke on.)

But in the spirit of good fellowship, Leo and I continued our detente from last year's SOS - Mike Klonsky even took a pic of us shaking hands yesterday.


Michael Walker Jones
Catalogs outrages (similar to what Nancy Carlson-Paige (Matt Damon's mom) did at last night's keynote --- which I'll edit and post next week). 
Leo just commented on Walker-Jones comment about John White that your loss was our gain. WJ: we have let the opposition bring us to our knees with attack on the unions. He has counseled out 75 people from profession. How they have framed the union. LO tchrs have no protection. White has no sense of history -- he can't bear to sit next to him. Boy can I show him video of this bloodless vampire in action in NYC.

Jones makes great point about unions backing down and apologing. Stand for Children in Mass forced union of highest performing state to back down and make a deal. Expresses the real outrage many of us are feeling at the defensive posture of unions.

I've been pointing out that the worm is turning in many ways and one of them is inside the top union leaderships themselves --- the attack is so fierce that they almost have no choice.

Fred Klonsky:
Just retired from suburban Chicago district. Bargained about 10 contracts, attended every NEA conv since '93. Had union background in prev work.
Took him 5 years to know what he didn't know -- why objects to TFA.
Began to look at social role of unions and teachers once he got teaching down. (my experience in my 4th yr.)
Talking about what union should do.
Really good stuff from personal view --- I have to post the video when I get home.
Fred and I had some rough spots over the years and I introduced myself to him yesterday and glad I did. I find him really impressive.
Was told when bargaining: "Teachers just another cost to be contained." Now barg not for bread &butter but for dignity and self respect.
Also have to build consensus with colleagues. Eg. common core -- some tchrs like idea.
Also -- world outside classroom - political and social. Many tchrs not comfortable in that role.
Senate bill 7: Tells Jonah Edelman story - I won't repeat.
Rights reg tenure, seniority removed, Val Added count 50% of eval. 75% vote to strike. All unions lobbied for it except Fred's union. (AMAZING).
IA (state union)  spun it as victory for teachers. Now accepted as disaster. In one yr went from 1 local to entire state.
New unionism -- results based unionism - Randi's gig. Really old -- concessions redefined. Fighting back would be new,


Xian Barrett from Chicago TU

I got to know Xian real well over the years. He often represented the involvement with student activist element of CORE and CTU. Stud and comm organizing.
Until 4 yrs ago he was a teacher in southside of Chi in poor area.
Careful about getting rid of Duncan concept -- replace one neo-lb with another.
New Orleans most extreme but Chicago and everyone else facing the same.
Even mom and pop charters being attacked and cannibalized by charter chains.
Old CTU leadership hostile to own members. Wanted to be active in the union but had doors slammed in his face. Not from TFA perspective of I want to solve unionism but want to contribute.
Opposition in Chi fragmented.
Met 10 fellow activists. Some were in a book group. Push union and take back our schools. 2 yrs later -CORE -- every elected position of the union. Didn't appoint only from own caucus -- chose best out of r&f and not caucus. (HEAR THAT UNITY).
He headed polit caucus of CTU -- now back in classroom and proud of it. I was fired and terminated from CHI -- blacklist not for people who hurt children but for people who organize -- he got off that list (HEAR THAT UNITY WHICH COVERS UP THE DREADED DISCONTINUED LIST).
I'm back where I was -- but now have a fighting leadership and union --- not just about the leadership but everyone. Needed 75% of all members. As we org buildings they got scared -- Rahm org camp to attack tchrs -- tchrs had to hand out letters to parents that said if your teacher voted for strike were aganst children. Hard for isolated tchr but having a fighting union made it easier -- voted 98% of those who voted and 92% of all tchrs.
Another vote on fact-finding report -- report came out for 18% raise for tchrs based on longer school day --- coming to all as part of Deformer astro turf report.
CTU House of Del voted unan against that report offering an 18% raise (HEAR THAT UNITY which would have gobbled that up.)
Now want to fight for class size and tenure etc not just for raises.
Working w comm orgs to have elected school bdds -- who governs schools (HEAR THAT UNITY).
CORE began as social justice caucus -- not vie for leadership initially -- attacks from old CTU ldrship -- attacked them for working directly with parents and comm - they responded that that YES WE ARE).
Important to give people in power choices as opposition -- rep members demo -- can be done with old or new ldrship -- could be very excited to have new group working with them -- then if they don't -- take next step. (Interesting point that some were making in MORE -- to not run this time but start out with campaign to give Unity a choice. But time frame of elections made that difficult.)
****We brought in a lot of active political people representing leftist orgs -- we were not going to bring in outside leftist agendas -- ISO, Solidarity, PLP. etc. ) we would slap each other back when it began to look like a leftist agenda with overly ideological components. I starred this because MORE in its early stages has to address this issue.)

Every single ed gathering we tried to get a few people to --- not to control dialogue but to reach out and support.
We had a political plan for org but also a plan on how to govern. We got to 600 out of 650 schools -- won 60% of vote. Oh shit -- we are in power. But not capital Oh shit since we had a plan. CTU new ldrsh supported SB7 but realized they would take damage and didn't defend a bad decision.
This is OUR civil rights struggle of our time. We win by taking on the struggle they say they are taking on that struggle.
DAMN -- battery ran out and I missed part of one of the best presentations. Xian rocked.

Leo
Politics of governance -- in oppositon can do polit of protest. Given we are in a war --- impor to hold ground we can defend. If we gain ground we can't defend we can be routed. Fighting on max ground we can hold. Leave us w ground we can't hold.

Jones - prob w unions claiming victory to members -- we took gas but didn't claim victory.
Natl and state ldrs talking about wrong thing. We need to go back on natl and st level and go back to roots.

Xian -- can have a pretty rad agenda and still be positive. Ie. Just don't say common core sucks but talk about uncommon core -- what will work with students. Don't just say Obama sucks -- not as a counter to elect Obama but what will work for students and communities. As educators we are the experts .

James -- reported -- community centured pedagogy. COCO in Chicago.
Mike K: Common Core comes out of struggle for equity -- the class nature of curriculum -- Jean Anion at CUNY studies -- what kids in Miss and Boston get. One reason for CC idea. Problematic. Community engagement also used to create segreg and -- think what they want to teach down south.

I wanted to make a point about without a democratic union we have

Tomorrow morning they will reconvene but I have to leave.

===========
The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

@SOS - Shanta Driver on Building New Civil Rights Movement

Wasn't I just in Detroit @AFT? Well now I'm in DC @SOS. 
But I can't get away from Detroit.

Speaker Shanta Driver from Detroit doing early keynote (Saturday, August 3 9AM):
Building the New Civil Rights Movement: Why We Need Direct Action to Defend Public Education." Shanta is a civil rights lawyer based in Detroit and with the group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN).

A few notes:
Last 10 years the worst in history -- our own trail of tears. 1/3 of schools left from 7 years ago. Entire neighborhoods with no public education. A master plan for Detroit to turn city from 1 million to half a million and closing public schools is an integral part of the plan. Anyone who could get out has gotten out.
One of first acts of Arne Duncan was to come to Detroit and declare war on the public ed system under the guise of "improvement."
I'm taping so the video will be available at some point so I won't go into more detail.

Best point -- Detroit Federation of Teachers had a secret rep (they didn't tell the members) on the board that was looking undermine the public schools. (see the video I put up a few days ago where DFT leader Keith Johnson makes a rousing speech about what was done to them --- these guys really need to be hit over the head over and over again with an ed deform plank before they even begin to think of putting up a sign of resistance.

4 years of RTTT has done nothing to put a dent in the popularity of pubed --  key is to organize students. One of problems with resisters it the idea of "we just have to convince the politicians as if they don't know what is going on."

She went to last 2 AFT conventions and it is clear that teachers hate Arne Duncan but leadership of those unions believe in working with Obama and Dems - has made the one force capable of leading the fight for public Ed has handicapped the movement.
Joe Biden at AFT convention. Same speech an NEA -- but had problem getting it out. Biden knows the crimes that have been committed but knew a lot of teachers would not walk out. That sense is palpable to the politicians. Standing up to them is what it would take.

Next workshop sessions will include a labor one with Fred and Mike Klonsky (I met Fred for the first time yesterday and Mike last year at SOS). I'll blog during that one too.

Yesterday was also a busy day and I'll catch up on that later.

 ==========
The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

Register for SOS People's Education Conference Aug. 3-5

Register for the...

Save Our Schools People's Education Conference

August 3rd - 5th

 http://saveourschoolsmarch.com/save-our-schools-august-d-c-c 

onvention-2012/ 
 

Hear and Be Heard by Expert Speakers

Shanta Driver * Deborah Meier * Jonathan Kozol * Nancy Carlsson Paige * Rose Sanders 

* Help build the Save Our Schools Movement and Days of Action in August *

* Bring your energy and enthusiasm to the People's Education Conference *

* Speak with experts. Share your knowledge *

* Discuss the urgent issues that challenge real education reform *

SOS Report: Back Home

Previous coverage:

• SOS Update Friday 3:25
• SOS update - Leaders Turn Down White House
• SOS notes - Kozol Keynote

Left DC around 1:30 Sunday, got home at 9pm (loads of traffic and drop-offs in Manhattan and Brooklyn.) Amazing and heroic driving by Julie Cavanagh even though using no hands while turning around to the back seat is a pretty unique method of freeing me from driving. Hey, I could have driven using my left arm. My CRV came through - except for dead battery Sunday morning. More on that in future post.

So many stories, so little ability to type. If I could type with 2 hands this update would run forever. Luckily you will be spared. I'll have to put up a few of these as long as I can remember. I'll say one thing about the GEM crew I went with: I was back in camp as a 10-year old. I laughed so hard at times my broken wrist took on a life of its own. What fun to see a group that can stand up and argue policy with the best of them also get real silly. But I'll embarass them all another time - maybe with pics - if I don't get bribes.

The showing of our film to this audience was an important event and got a really great response. Julie and Brian were treated like rock starts. Both Susan Ohanian and Debbie Meier were in attendance. But more on the film, which was shown in multiple cities over the weekend in a follow-up post.

There are lots of analyses out there as to what really happened over the past 4 days around the Save Our Schools conference and march. It is hard not to mix the political with the personal. There was minimal union involvement - intentionally, though the NEA and AFT gave $25 Gs each. So much of this bubbled up from the classroom. I really liked the people running SOS. The entire 4 days were rich in content to such an extent that the march itself was only one factor.

Estimates run from 5-8000 mostly teachers (k-grad school), parents, policy people, some administrators, and superstars like Ravitch, Kozol, Meier, Matt Damon, etc. Kozol and Meier did not just give speeches but hung around for all 4 days of the conference to mingle and build for the future - when we left  around 1pm yesterday Kozol and Meier were still there.

A few of the Gemers who took good care of me in DC: Left: Jones, Dervish Right: Donlan, Cavanagh

To me the entire trip - and why I wanted to go so badly - is/was about building relationships locally (our GEM crew bonded and our work will be better for it) and nationally. How great to see Susan Ohanian and Juanita Doyan again after 8 years - when we gathered in Birmingham AL to oppose NCLB. How nice to see the rest of the world catching up. We distributed buttons made by Juanita all over the place.

See this "We're not gonna take it" montage on you tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EumSu0t6Ec&feature=share) where you can see a glimpse of the GEM banner and Julie wearing her Diane Ravitch tee-shirt.

It was such an era of good feeling I went over to Leo Casey at the Friday night reception and said "Let's make up" and shook his hand. (I mean I hugged Joel Klein.) Leo was gracious. Leo and my close pal (and chauffeur) Julie Cavanagh have an excellent relationship so does it make sense for me to be so hostile? Maybe it reflects a shift in my attitude about the UFT/AFT in the context of my work with GEM where our position vis a vis the union is: we are doing what we are doing because the UFT doesn't but if they want to come along they are welcome. It's more complex than that, but some of my colleagues have been critical of me when I just let it fly without any analysis or reasoning behind it. So despite my outreach, don't expect any lessening in my criticism of the UFT, just less personal attacks. Won't be as much fun though. (A shout-out to Michael Mendel, who called my wife this weekend to see how I was doing. What a love-fest this is turning out to be.)

There's so much to report maybe it's best to return to some chronology from where I left off Friday, which I'll do in upcoming posts where I'll fill you in on who we hung with and more about the turn-down from the White House meeting on Friday.

In the meantime:

How nice to see The Reflective Educator, James Boutin (thanks for the shout out to GEMers, James), again.We talked about working together in the future no matter where he is located.

Here are links to his excellent reports:

SOS Conference Day One

SOS Conference Day Two

SOS March in DC

Matt Damon:

http://youtu.be/HqOub-heGQc


Stories in WAPO

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/teachers-march-on-washington/2011/07/30/gIQAz48zjI_story.html?wpisrc=emailtoafriend

More on this Story

• Teachers take ‘Save Our Schools’ plea to D.C.
• Answer Sheet: What was new about the rally
• Matt Damon’s clear-headed speech to teachers
• March leaders answer White House invitation

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Klein Lied to the National Press Club

Trevor Cobbold of Save Our Schools has been in touch. They have followed up on Klein's recent visit. Leonie Haimson sent out this excerpt of their report. (See below for links to full document.)

Click to enlarge (page 1 only)

Check out the latest report from the Australian organization Save Our Schools. Here is an excerpt from "Klein Lied to the National Press Club":

New York City Schools Chancellor, Joel Klein, was exposed as a dissembler at his National Press Club address in Canberra last week. Under forensic questioning from The Canberra Times’ education reporter, Emma Macdonald, Klein resorted to lies and deceptions to justify his claims of increases in student achievement in New York City schools.

Macdonald challenged Klein on his claims by citing national reading and mathematics assessments which show that there has been no improvement in student achievement in NYC since 2003, except for 4th grade mathematics. She questioned him on whether the grades given to schools in this year’s school progress reports had been manipulated by reducing the cut-off scores to achieve an A or B.

Klein denied both charges. He said that Macdonald was wrong on both facts. His response was to falsely assert that the cut-off scores for school grades had not been reduced, falsely claim that New York State tests were a better measure of student achievement than the independent national assessments, and to selectively cite evidence about the success of African-American students.

Check out the entire document, complete with bibliography.

By the way, it was our own Steve Koss who first figured out the cut-off scores had been manipulated in this way: Don’t Like the Results? Change the Scale!

Full SOS document posted at Save Our Schools web site and Norms Notes.

RELATED:
Paul Moore - "The likes of Klein will perish in the blaze."

Joel Klein's School Trip to Australia

Save Our Schools media release welcoming Joel Klein to Australia.

It is also posted on the SOS website http://www.soscanberra.com/

Leonie, Patrick and crew have issued

A warning at the NYC Public School Parents blog to Australians:

Don't let your kids suffer, as have ours!

And if you'd like to read some of the propaganda Joel is putting out for Aussies to read check this at Norms Notes.

Click to enlarge.